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Common Core ELA5th GradeReading: Informational

RI.5.9: Combine Information from Several Texts

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.9 · Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

All 43 5th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 5, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.5.9 Means in Plain English

Fifth graders read several texts on one topic and pull their facts together to write or talk about it with authority. One article covers the poor soil a Venus flytrap grows in, another how its trap snaps shut, and a real answer about why it hunts needs both.

Fourth graders (RI.4.9) integrated two texts. Fifth grade asks for several, and the facts should be woven together, not reported text by text. In sixth grade (RI.6.9) the focus shifts to comparing how two authors present the same events, such as a memoir and a biography.

RI.5.9 I Can Statements

  • I can take notes on one topic from more than one text.
  • I can combine facts from several texts to answer one question.
  • I can write or speak about a topic using facts from every source.

RI.5.9 Worked Example

Text 1 explains why the plant hunts and Text 2 how its trap works. The question needs both, and the weak answer stops at one.

Read the Story
Text 1, from a nature center website: The Venus flytrap grows wild in only one small region, the boggy wetlands of North and South Carolina. The wet, sandy soil there holds very little nitrogen, which every plant needs to grow.Text 1: Like other green plants, the flytrap makes its own food from sunlight. The insects it catches work more like a vitamin pill than a meal: they supply the nitrogen its soil is missing.Text 2, from a book about unusual plants: Each trap has a few stiff trigger hairs on its inner surface. One touch does nothing. If a hair is touched a second time within about twenty seconds, the trap snaps shut in a fraction of a second.Text 2: Closing and reopening use up a lot of the plant’s energy, and each trap can close only a handful of times before it withers. A raindrop or a falling leaf touches a hair once, but a crawling insect keeps touching them.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Using both texts, explain why a flytrap waits for a second touch before it closes.
Not Yet“The trap snaps shut when an insect touches a trigger hair twice within about twenty seconds.”Accurate, but it comes from Text 2 alone and restates the rule instead of explaining it. Why the plant hunts at all, the missing nitrogen, is in Text 1.
Meets the Standard“Text 1 says the flytrap catches insects because its boggy soil has very little nitrogen, and insects supply it. Text 2 says each trap can close only a handful of times. So a closing is too valuable to waste. A raindrop touches a hair once, but a crawling insect keeps touching, so waiting for the second touch means the trap shuts only when there is nitrogen inside.”It starts from the question and joins a fact from each text, the missing nitrogen and the limited closings, into one explanation instead of two separate reports.
Question Stems to Use
What does each text tell you about this question?What does Text 2 add that Text 1 leaves out?How do these facts fit together?Could you answer with only one text? What would be missing?Explain it to someone who has read neither text.

Common Mistakes with RI.5.9

Answering from one text

Every fact in the answer comes from Text 2

Try this: Ask students to mark each fact in their answer with the text it came from, and require at least one from each.

Two summaries stapled together

“Text 1 says… Text 2 says…” with no sentence that connects them

Try this: Have students start from the question, not the texts, and join facts with linking words like because, so and which explains why.

Missing the link between facts

Mentions the nitrogen and the limited closings, but never says why one makes the second touch matter

Try this: Ask “How does this fact explain that one?” for each pair, and add the answer to the explanation as its own sentence.

Where RI.5.9 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.4.9Integrate information from two texts on the same topic to write or speak about it.
AlongsideW.5.7Run short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge of a topic.SL.5.4Report on a topic in a sensible order, with facts and details to back the ideas.
Comes NextRI.6.9Compare and contrast how two authors present the same events, such as a memoir and a biography.

Practice RI.5.9

Quick Check

  1. According to Text 1, why does a Venus flytrap catch insects?
  2. According to Text 2, what makes a trap snap shut?
  3. Which fact from Text 2 explains why the flytrap cannot afford to close on a raindrop?

RI.5.9: Other Names

RI.5.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.9

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.